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“The first rule is…”

I believe that is a mostly correct quote from a deleted scene in “Serenity” (the movie, not the first episode of Firefly) regarding Inara, played by Morena Baccarin, on the training of new Companions. It relates to nearly the first thing I saw this morning post-election:

I wasn’t enchanted with either candidate and did not vote for either of the major parties in a national election. Some of you may think my vote for a third party candidate was wasted. However, I don’t think it was because I voted for the candidate that best expressed my views – which is… the point… of the electoral process?

Anyway, I saw the “Once you go black you never go Mormon” tweet at 6:45 this morning. Not exactly something I want to wake up to. I replied, as did others, that it was racist and bigoted. This makes her follow up statement that we/I need a sense of humor even more offensive and here’s why:

1) “Once you go black…” is pejorative. It goes back to the racist slurs used to make black men into nothing more than sexual beasts out to conquer genteel white women. It is also sexist in that women only care about penis size.

2) “It’s casual” and “Have a sense of humor” are a cop-out. Everyone wants the freedom to say what they like but no one wants to accept any push-back or that someone else may not like what they had to say. Words have weight and meaning. Choose them carefully.

Incidentally, I am not Congress – so my speaking out on this topic is NOT infringing on her right (or anyone else’s) to speak their mind. You are welcome to tell me to lighten up or whatever. Disagreement is not censorship.

3) Just because you have 140 characters to speak doesn’t mean that you should. Political matters are deep and require thought and explanations. It is why I really try to avoid discussing them on Facebook because many of them are deeper, more nuanced (or my views of them are deeper and more nuanced than a tiny little comment box will allow.) But since most Americans have the attention span of a gnat, it isn’t surprising that everything has moved to soundbites.

There is something to the thought of Old Entish – maybe it shouldn’t be said it unless it takes a long time to say.

4) Nothing about what was said came from a place of love. You cannot make a racist statement or one bigoted against a religion and say that is all love. It may have been intended to be funny, but it wasn’t. What is said off the cuff is usually a good insight into who they are because they aren’t monitoring themselves or being monitored/scripted by others.

You might say “you don’t know her!” You would be right. I don’t know her. She doesn’t know me, either. Neither do you. Statements like this tell me a lot about who Morena Baccarin is as a person, unfortunately. This may have been a momentary slip of the fingers but considering all the talk about bullying that very few people seem to be supportive of (and something she has actively took a stand against in the past) and mean words, how is this any different?

They also do nothing to heal the divisiveness that so many people claim to care about healing. After the 2008 election, Democrats and Obama supporters told us to come together (well, they always do that after the election, 2008 was no different) and work together for the good of the country. Mitt Romney’s concession speech last night was beautiful and gracious. It was humble and thankful to the people who worked so hard on his behalf and encouraging those to continue to work for what they believe and to work with the President to achieve those goals.

It isn’t about sore losers. If you can’t be a gracious winner, no one really wants to hear you either.

5) Statements like this are OK if the Left (or from CA or NY) does it but if someone on the Right (or from the South) says it, it’s racist. Double standards suck. A bigot is a bigot is a bigot whether they vote D or R. They are further proof that people aren’t as race-blind as they claim.

For those that think I am biased against the Left because I highlighted Morena’s tweet and she has openly supported the President, I am going through my Twitter and Facebook friends and removing those – no matter the D or the R – who make such bigoted statements.